A Sabbath Day's Journey

​On this particular Sunday, the only Sunday between the Ascension of our Lord and Pentecost, the Gospel text is always from a particular chapter of the Gospel according to John, the Gospel account that has a distinctly different time setting from the other accounts.

For this Sunday, the Gospel text is always from John 17, what is more commonly known as Jesus' High Priestly Prayer. And, for this year, the first few verses of that chapter is the appointed reading.

Jesus shows just how different his time frame is when he, in verse 11 of the text, says that he is no longer in the world. Depending on how those words are read, they might have a wide range of reactions.

One of the first might be something like, "How could he say that? He's about to do his most important act of dying on the cross and rising to life again!"

This is most certainly true. But Jesus' use of the word 'world' is a bit more negative than ours. And that is probably a good thing to keep in mind. Even if we have a home in this world, this world is not our home.

A serious struggle between some parts of the world and Jesus may be seen in this Gospel account. And we get a good reminder of the struggle when, in the Small Catechism, one of our worst enemies listed is the world.

The perspective we receive in the Gospel according to John is that Jesus is essentially never truly bothered by the world, the devil, or even the sinful nature of people. The hour for Jesus finally comes when some people from Greece come to see him. The hour finally comes when Judas leaves to betray him. The hour comes so often when other people do something and not Jesus.

This pushes out our puny perspectives, especially when we think we have a problem here or there. God has an eternal solution for you. Better yet, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all work together to do something quite wonderful, something we could not wreck, even if we tried really hard.

Jesus, after having redeemed the sinful race, ascended into heaven, and that is a much better position for him--and for those who do not mind having a human nature like Jesus'. In a very real sense, we are also no longer in this world.